Sunday, 30 July 2017

The Ancient Clock ofMoyne Abbey

Killala, Co. Mayo

One
might wonder what connection an ancient monastery in county Mayo has with the
world of the Irish Country House but Moyne Abbey located near Killala is where the Knox family made one of their first homes in the county in
the early 1700’s. In the next one hundred years they would come to dominate the
county through the vast tracts of land that they would accumulate and the large
country houses that would be built by later generations of the family. However
it beggars belief that an ancient clock, said to be centuries old, had existed
at Moyne Abbey and survived in the Knox’s possession up until the 1920’s.

The
Franciscan Friary of Moyne was founded by Mac William de Burgo in 1455 and the
building was consecrated in 1462. The monastery was burnt in 1590 by Sir
Richard Bingham, the English Governor of Connaught. The friars left after suffering
persecution at the hands Bingham and the lands of the abbey came in the possession
of Edmund Barrett. However it soon came into the hands of an English widow who
allowed the friars to return to the Abbey in 1606 where they remained until
1618. After which the monastery was owned by the Lindsay family who demolished
part of the monastery with gun powder. It is also said that they sold the bell from
the tower of Moyne for £700, which was a gift to the friars from the Queen of Spain.
It was purchased for the Protestant Cathedral of Armagh and as a result of this
sale and their treatment of Moyne, the Lindsay family were cursed and despised by many.

Later
in 1718, the abbey came in to posession of the Knox family when Francis Knox,
the son of William Knox of Castle Rea, took up residence at Moyne after his
marriage to Dorothea Annesley. Initially it is said that parts of the abbey were
still habitable and that Francis re-modelled a wing of the monastery and lived there.
It was recorded by that Knox Family that ‘
in 1750 the then proprietor was building a dwelling house on the site of the
old walls and that some of the buildings on the north side were taken down for that
purpose’. After the Knox family left Moyne to live in Rappa Castle near
Crossmolina, the property at Moyne was bought by the Kirkwoods, who are
remembered for their association with Bartra Island and the nearby town of
Killala. The Knox family may have left Moyne but it appears that they took a
number of items with them to Rappa from the monastery that included an ancient
clock.

A visitor to Rappa Castle in
1882 noted that ‘the entrance hall - a comfortably furnished apartment - across a second,
into the crowning glories of a third, where we were requested to wait till
Captain Knox made his appearance’. He showed the visitors the many treasures that the castle
contained including the clock from Moyne Abbey. This ancient artefact was found
sitting on the flagged floored kitchen of the castle where they were told by Captain Annesley Arthur Knox that the clock had
ticked as it had done for 300 years. The visitor went on to describe that ‘The case of some dark wood beautifully
carved. I thought it was bog oak, Captain Knox said mahogany, which would make
the case to be much younger than the clock. The Captain assured us that it was
the best time-keeper in the world. It only requires winding once a month, it used
to show the day of the month, but some meddler disarranged that part of the
machinery. The dial plate is of some white metal, brilliant and silvery.
Captain Knox said it was brass, but I have seen things look more brazen that
not so old.’ The clock was recorded
as being in good working order in 1903.

Captain
Annesley Knox died in 1897, his nephew inherited the castle at Rappa and its
contents but a number of family deaths in close succession resulted in the sale
of the contents of Rappa in December 1924. The vast scope of items on
offer ranged from a 1924 Chevrolet de Lux motor car to an ancient cannon on a
stand. Interestingly also listed in the contents for
sale, is the Holy Water font from Moyne Abbey but there was no mention of the
ancient clock. However it was later recorded by a member of the Knox family
that the ancient clock that came from Moyne Abbey was sold as a box of scrap
metal and had left the castle before anyone realised its true value. As a result of this oversight one of the most fascinating artifacts associated with this monastery situated on the banks of the Moy disappeared from sight and has never made a reappearance.

The Irish Country House Blog - The Houses Known by the Trees

My name is David Hicks and I am the author of 'Irish Country Houses - A Chronicle of Change' published in October 2012 and 'Irish Country Houses - Portraits & Painters' published in October 2014 , both published by Collins Press, Cork. This blog features unpublished articles and photographs assembled from my archive gathered over years of research. I am currently compiling my third book 'Irish Country Houses - Restoration & Redemption'.
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